1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a capacitive load driving circuit and a plasma display apparatus, and more particularly to a capacitive load driving circuit for driving capacitive loads such as pixels in a plasma display panel (PDP), and also to a plasma display apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, plasma display apparatuses have been commercially implemented as thin display apparatuses. Here, in a capacitive load driving circuit for driving capacitive loads such as pixels in a plasma display panel, when delay time is adjusted using a delay circuit, the pulse width of a sustain pulse may vary.
For example, if the pulse width of a sustain pulse increases, a reduction in time margin, the occurrence of an abnormal current, etc. may result. Conversely, if the pulse width of a sustain pulse decreases, noise may be superimposed on the rising and falling waveforms of a sustain voltage, which can reduce the operating margin of the plasma display apparatus and can cause screen flicker.
It is therefore desired to provide a capacitive load driving circuit that can supply a proper output voltage to the capacitive load by reducing the variation in output pulse width that occurs in such cases as when the delay time is adjusted using a delay circuit. It is also desired to provide a plasma display apparatus that can supply a plasma display panel with a drive voltage free from such problems as the reduction of time margin, the occurrence of abnormal current, the superimposition of noise, etc.
In the prior art, there is proposed a plasma display apparatus that has a sustain circuit designed so as to eliminate variations in the rise/fall timing and the shape of sustain pulses, and thereby achieves low power consumption while preventing malfunctioning (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2001-282181: EP-1139323-A2).
In the prior art, there are also proposed a driving apparatus, a driving method, and a driving circuit for a plasma display panel that aim to simplify the circuit configuration and to reduce the manufacturing cost by reducing the breakdown voltages of the devices contained in the driving apparatus (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2002-062844: U.S. Pat. No. 6,686,912-B1).
Further, in a driving apparatus for an AC PDP, if a power recovery circuit fails to operate properly, output loss in the driving apparatus increases, increasing the amount of heat generated by each component forming the driving apparatus; to address this problem, there is proposed in the prior art a plasma display apparatus that does not need to construct the driving apparatus by using high-breakdown voltage devices, and yet can prevent damage such as device breakdown in the event of a malfunction of the power recovery circuit (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2002-215087: US-2002/0097203-A1).
The prior art and its associated problems will be described in detail later with reference to the accompanying drawings.